Today, TV sets are among the most widespread terminals found in the households.
FIG. 1 shows a typical configuration of a conventional TV broadcasting system.
In FIG. 1, a ground-based analog broadcasting station 1 transmits terrestrial analog broadcast signals. A TV set 2 in each household receives the transmitted signals so as to display pictures based on the received signals and output the corresponding sounds.
FIG. 2 outlines a typical hardware structure of the TV set 2 in FIG. 1.
The TV set 2 is made up of a tuner block 11, various encoder blocks 12, and a receiver function microcomputer block 13. Under control of the receiver function microcomputer block 13, the tuner block 11 detects and demodulates the signal of a particular channel out of the terrestrial analog broadcast signals received. Also under control of the receiver function microcomputer block 13, the encoder blocks 12 subject the signal of a specific channel to, say, Y/C separation. The receiver function microcomputer block 13 thus controls the tuner block 11 and encoder blocks 12.
The TV set 2 in FIG. 2 is designed to comprise hardware and software components integrally. The TV set 2 has a single, integrated function: to receive terrestrial analog broadcast signals so as to display pictures based on the received signals while outputting the accompanying sounds. For that reason, it has been difficult to design a next-generation TV set that will inherit the structure of the conventional TV set 2 while allowing multiple function modules to be attached to or removed from the set individually as desired.
In recent years, there has been an appreciable increase in the variety of information-distributing media such as the Internet, BS (broadcasting satellite) digital broadcasts, CS (communication satellite) digital broadcasts, terrestrial digital broadcasts, and video games. The trend has highlighted the importance of the role played by the ubiquitous TV set in the household as a display device for receiving, processing, and displaying the diverse kinds of information transmitted by various media, as shown in FIG. 3.
All information used on the Internet; by BS, CS or terrestrial digital broadcasts; or in video games is digitized. To process such information requires loading appropriate software into hardware such as dedicated semiconductor devices for addressing digital information from different media (pictures, sounds and graphics), and a CPU (central processing unit) for controlling such hardware.
Software practiced today to offer functions for processing digital information includes browsers for displaying an EPG (electronic program guide) and BML/HTML (Broadcasting Markup Language/Hyper Text Markup Language) browsers capable of displaying web pages.
The functions implemented by such software are expected to grow progressively as more and more media are taken up to distribute digital information.
There is a high possibility of next-generation TV sets getting introduced in the near future, accompanied not only by functions for receiving information from numerous media but also by features based on a variety of application software for processing the received information.
The next-generation TV sets will be of multifunctional type as opposed to the single-function existing TV set 2. The growing functions of the new TV set are expected to prompt users to make function-related requests as follows:
(1) The user may want to customize the functionality of the TV set so that only the features considered necessary by the user will be in use;
(2) The user may want to pay only for the functions deemed necessary out of those offered by the TV set; and
(3) The user may want to obtain detailed information about new functions that can be added to the TV set in the future.
The increasing functions may also lead TV set manufacturers to feel justified in getting the following requests satisfied:
(4) The manufacturer may want to know in a direct manner which of the many functions being offered have been accepted by users; and
(5) The manufacturer may want to distribute the functions specifically desired by users to their TV sets, along with diverse kinds of information about such functions.
To respond to the requests (1) through (3) above requires attaching or detaching suitable software modules individually to or from the TV set in order to implement the desired functions. However, the selective installation of software modules into the user's TV set is difficult to accomplish if the TV set has inherited the design concept of the integrated hardware-software structure of the conventional TV set 2.
To satisfy the requests (4) and (5) above requires obtaining information as to which of the functions provided by the TV set are selected preferentially by users. Conventionally, as shown in FIG. 4, the manufacturers had their TV set users fill out a user registration form attached to each TV set purchased. The user registration forms soliciting the users' comments were mailed to and manually compiled by the manufacturers, so that the necessary information was picked up from the entries in the returned forms. It took an inordinately long time for the manufacturers to gather information about the users' preferred functions and offer the requested services in a timely manner.